Introduction

(Names will be changed so that I don't get sued. I'm not going to tell you where I live. I could be you in fact. How does that make you feel? Hm?)

Welcome to the workin' week.
Oh I know it don't thrill you, I hope it don't kill you.
Welcome to the workin' week.
You gotta do it till you're through it so you better get to it.

-Elvis Costello

I hit fifteen like a car full of crash test dummies hitting a brick wall. I’m usually better at analogy than this, sometimes. Usually when I’m describing the meeting of two star crossed lovers, who I’ve dragged halfway to hell and back before they could reunite and have a happy ending or at least what I deem a happy ending. Sometimes, you have to have your characters suffer, make them work for it. If they didn’t suffer enough on the way there, then you kill off one of them, that’ll teach them.

The reason fifteen was such a moment was that I was instructed in non negotiable terms by my father that there was not going to be anymore money just coming my way from their pockets. I was legal to work but not to have sex at fifteen, so out the door and off to find a job.

My father always said this of work “If it was so fing great, they’d put a gOH dMYn bow on it and sell it in a storefront.”

Which, always confused me because you would need someone to sell it, but if work was great then wouldn’t everyone just sell work because then they’d be working and they could be happy. Hang on, my brain is getting an aneurysm. Okay, I think I took care of it.

I was angry about having to get a job.

I thought it was unfair.

I was stupid.

Six years later, I think I’ve gotten smarter, handsomer, better, faster, stronger and could make cool noises when I was running on the treadmill, hang on, that’s the Six Million Dollar Man. Want to know how stupid I was back in the day? Tune into the Epilogue. It’s at the end of the book. Not right now, that would be cheating. Besides, you’d miss all the best parts. I’m not going to tell you what the best parts are either. That would be stupid as well. The epilogue’s not going to be the best part. But it’ll be a nice read after slogging through the rest of the book. That I can guarantee. Anyway, this introduction accomplished nothing except probably made you put the book down. You’re probably saying something like “this kid can’t write” or if you’re one of those literary jerks, “he’s too stream of conscious, I’d rather be reading the Great Gatsby or some 14th century shepherd poetry”. Well, then you’re obviously in the wrong section. I don’t have any insights into the human soul or any husbands cheating on their wives because they’re not happy and discovering that cheating on their wives continues to make them unhappy. I’ve noticed that the guys in classic novels have a lot more sex than the stars of romantic comedies. I wonder why that is? Whatever, this is a tale of crappy jobs not literary lust.

With that I’d like to dedicate this book to all those that have worked a crappy job. Who have flipped burgers or put clothes on racks and been yelled at by people that took this way too seriously. Have one on me and let’s get started, shall we?